McDonald’s wants a 3D printer in every restaurant so they can print Happy Meal toys

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Back in the glory days of Happy Meals, McDonald’s used to include some truly amazing toys (for coming from a fast food restaurant, at least). When Pogs experienced its 15 minutes of fame, McDonald’s had exclusive pogs and slammers — some of us might have even collected the entire set of Power Rangers Pogs. One of the most memorable Happy Meals toys were the McDonald’s Changeables — McDonald’s menu items that were robots in disguise. The difficulty with the toys, though, was that you never knew what you were going to get without regularly checking in with the fast food chain. Now, McDonald’s IT director Mark Fabes says that the chain is thinking about putting a 3D printer in every restaurant so they can 3D print whichever Happy Meals toys a child wants.

So, when you’re trying to collect every item in a series, for example, but just can’t seem to ever make it to McDonald’s when they’re giving out the Quarter Pounder with Cheese-O-Saur Changeable or the Power Rangers slammer, a 3D printer would allow a McDonald’s employee to simply print the toy you’d like, right there on the spot.

Not only would this idea make collecting McDonald’s toys more appealing — in that it wouldn’t be a pain in the butt to get a full set — but if a child is unhappy with a certain toy, they can just have the one they wanted most printed out. However, this is just an idea at the moment, and McDonald’s would not only have to figure out the overall expense (which would likely be immense), but the chain would also have to determine if a machine that melts plastic is safe to have on a food preparation premises.

Though the idea is just that — an idea — it’s certainly an interesting one, and could not only boost trips to McDonald’s (by reducing the game of Russian toy roulette parents would otherwise be playing), but satisfy children in the process, and perhaps even make limited edition location-based toys.